


why do you think, caroline?

by trashcanbarbie



Series: unconnected klaroline drabbles [4]
Category: The Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Future, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Caroline Forbes-centric, Emotional Infidelity, F/M, Future Fic, Jealous Klaus Mikaelson, Klaroline Drabble Collection, Klaus Mikaelson Has A Heart, Parent Caroline Forbes, Pining Klaus Mikaelson, Post-Canon, Post-Season/Series 08 Finale, Protective Klaus Mikaelson, Vampire Caroline Forbes, but to someone else, engaged caroline forbes, thats the other shoe alright
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-28
Updated: 2020-12-28
Packaged: 2021-03-10 17:27:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,052
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28380921
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/trashcanbarbie/pseuds/trashcanbarbie
Summary: “Does he know about me?” he inquires, curious in every line of his body.She raises her eyebrows, “you?”He smiles to himself. “Us.”She shrugs, then nods, “he's heard rumours. I told him they were just that."Klaus leans back in his seat, adopts an air of another person. “Oh, hey, twenty-five-slash-sixty-year-old from New York, have you heard your fiancée is madly madly in love with a Mikaelson? The handsome one? —'' Caroline snorts, but he just glares and continues. “Anyway, he’s madly madly in love with her, too. Rather possessive guy. He’s the wolf one, the hybrid, and you know them. Jealous lot. Anyway, I’d start running, if I were you. The moment he hears about this, you're dead.”
Relationships: Caroline Forbes/Klaus Mikaelson
Series: unconnected klaroline drabbles [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2069625
Comments: 18
Kudos: 91





	why do you think, caroline?

“I'm getting married.”

“Are you?” he drawls, looking down at his book. And he sounds bored, and it makes Caroline infuriated. She’d sought him out, in this tiny godforsaken café, in a side street in New York — she’d talked to Elijah just to find him, for god's sake, and she’s sitting her, the same man who said he fancied her and that they had a connection and who she fucked against a tree is bored.

She swallows her rage and sits across from him, he just turns the page.. “Yes. This spring. When the flowers are out.”

He looks up, finally, and his eyes are just the same. It nearly knocks the breath out of Caroline. “To who?” he asks, quietly.

Caroline hesitates, “He’s - he’s another vampire. He’s nice. He’s a good person.”

Klaus smiles, but it’s brief. “Ah-huh, really ?” he says, and chuckles, “since he is neither a person or good anymore, I find that hard to believe.”

Caroline smiles sweetly, “we’re all not mass murdering hybrids, Klaus.”

He leans over the table, spinning the book shut and sliding it to the edge of the table. “No. Some of us are much sweeter,” he flirts.

She just raises her eyebrows. “You really haven't changed.”

“I'm a thousand years old, love. I don't change anymore.”

“You've done all your personal growth?” she says, raising her eyebrows at him. This is familiar. This is them. They've fallen right back into the groove, and Caroline is relieved. She’d thought they might not, and she was more afraid of coming here and it being different than coming here and him rejecting her.

“Afraid so,” he draws, but he’s smiling.

She can't hold back her smile, either, and her words aren't as cutting as they should be, they're soft, “Pity, this is the best it gets ?”

He laughs at her, which is mildly disappointing, but only mildly. Caroline missed his laugh.

The waitress approaches the table. “Can I get you anything?”

“Another espresso and the chocolate mud cake, for her,” Klaus orders, not even glancing at the menu.

She scribbles in her notepad, murmurs, an “awesome,” smiles brightly, and walks away.

“I'm not staying,” Caroline tells Klaus, only after she’s gone.

He looks at her piercingly, “then why are you here?”

Caroline really doesn't know. It's not like she needs his permission to get married or anything.

“I — I just …” she stammers, finally trailing off.

"Couldn't stay away," he finishes, and looks at her. "I know the feeling."

She takes a deep breath, leans away from him. “How have you been, Klaus?” she asks because she genuinely wants to know.

“Mourning your absence,” he drawls, leering a crooked, quick grin across the table at her.

“All these years?” she asks him, and she’s half-smiling too, but half of her believes it.

“Every moment,” he says, and it's a little too real. Caroline obviously shows it on her face, or maybe he can just read her mind or something so he starts, waving a hand around and talking, “Oh, I don't know. I’ve daggered Kol, he was getting on my nerves, but I really should wake him up soon. Rebekah’s got a new squeeze, last time I heard. She’s off gallivanting around Europe. Elijah’s — fuck, I don't care. How have you been, love?”

“You left, and I stayed in Mystic Falls. Uh," and she laughs, "a lot of crazy stuff happened. I had kids," she tells him, and he smiles, nods. "Uh, I married Stefan, and he died. I was really sad, for a long time, and then my kids grew up and didn't need me anymore -- no one needed me anymore, they all moved on and lived these adult lives. I moved to New York instead, and had a few years of your typical vampire reveling. I figured you'd turn up sometime, but you never did."

"I was busy," he says gently, "I'm sorry."

"It's fine. I was just expecting it," his gaze hits hers, and it's an electric current. They could burn this whole café into a crisp. Caroline breaks it, then says, in a whisper. "Then I met him. And I guess I'm going to live those adult years too.”

“Him,” Klaus says, then leans forward, eyes piercing hers. “Why don't you tell me his name? Are you afraid?”

“Yes,” she says. “I am afraid."

Klaus smiles his crooked grin. “If you loved him, I wouldn't hurt him.”

She knows better by now. “ I don't believe you,” she tells him, like it’s a secret, only it's not.

His face quirks into a pleased look, “You probably shouldn't.”

Klaus leans back in his seat, still watching her carefully. “How old is he?"

“He was twenty five when he turned," Caroline says.

Klaus barely reacts. “Not what I asked.”

“Sixty.”

He raises his eyebrows the slightest, “sixty? How old are you, now, nine?”

“Ten,” she lies.

He smiles at her, and he knows what she's done, “no, it’s nine.”

She sighs. “You're a thousand, as you just pointed out, sixty is nothing by comparison”

He nods, and says it like it’s obvious, “yes, but I very much doubt he has the connection that we have."

She's about to argue the existence of such a thing, but she already admitted it right before he fucked her against a tree, so that's a bit of a burnt bridge. "We have a connection,” she says instead, but she knows it's not the same.

He knows that too, as he says, “are you sure, love?”

“I'm marrying him, yes, I'm sure,” she snaps defensively.

The waitress comes back, carrying a little china cup of espresso and a plate of chocolate cake. She places the cake infront of Caroline, who has to admit, it does look really, really good.

“Thank you,” Klaus says, smiling at her. She smiles back and retreats to the counter.

“No love?” Caroline critiques, imitating his voice badly. “You seem like the guy to hit on waitresses.”

“The only person I hit on is you, Caroline.”

She scoffs.

“Are you jealous?” he asks her, probably pleased at the thought. He grabs one of those little sachets of sugar and rips off the top, pouring it in.

“Of course I'm not,” she says as she watches him stir it in.

“Really,” he just says, and takes his first sip. He sighs happily, “god, I love the coffee here. I've been coming since it opened in ‘73.”

“Amazing," she squirts at him smarmily.

"Aren't you eating your cake?” he asks instead of shooting something snarky back instead. 

She shrugs. “Not hungry.”

“Don't lie.”

“You gonna compel the truth out of me?”

He smiles, but it's a little cold. “Of course not.”

"Try it," he says, "at least."

"Fine," she mumbles, and stabs a bit with her fork.

She takes a bite, and is fully prepared to say something cutting and mean until the cake actually touches her tongue and it's -- oh, god, the best thing she's ever eaten. Literally, the best thing she's ever eaten.

When she looks up he's grinning. He doesn't need to say, told you so.

“Would I know him?” Klaus asks, something else in her eyes, “your fiancé.”

She sniffs haughtily, “I doubt it. He doesn't move in your circles."

He laughs, shortly, like she's a child he's entertaining, “I move in every circle.”

She just shakes her head.

“Hm. Come on, love. Give me a hint. Just a hint," he begs.

She sighs, divulges, “he’s from New York.”

He thinks for a moment, an looks out the window as he does. “60, looks 25, from New York. Probably rings a bell, but I meet too many people," he drawls smoothly, confidently.

She raises her eyebrows, “oh, do you?”

“Quite," Klaus says, his eyes tightening at the corners. “Does he know about me?” he inquires, curious in every line of his body.

She raises her eyebrows, “you?”

He smiles to himself. “Us.”

She shrugs, then nods, “he's heard rumours. I told him they were just that."

Klaus leans back in his seat, adopts an air of another person. “Oh, hey, twenty-five-slash-sixty-year-old from New York, have you heard your fiancée is madly madly in love with a Mikaelson? The handsome one? —'' Caroline snorts, but he just glares and continues. “Anyway, he’s madly madly in love with her, too. Rather possessive guy. He’s the wolf one, the hybrid, and you know them. Jealous lot. Anyway, I’d start running, if I were you. The moment he hears about this, you're dead.”

She blinks slowly. “Why isn't he dead yet, then? I'll bet you knew about us, before today," she guesses.

He smiles, “I enjoy your conversation, and if I had killed him, this conversation would be a lot more angry."

“Yes," she shoots him a quizzical look, and he sighs, and then, “I do want you to be happy, Caroline. Truly.”

Caroline hesitates, this feels like a trap, but then, she falls for it. “I want that for you, too," she says softly.

He looks out the window for a moment, then back at her. “Then don't marry him,” he whispers, and — and he’s joking, but he's not.

She raises her eyebrows, tries to play off the lump in her throat. “Oh, marry you, instead?”

He grins wolfishly, and the Klaus she knows is back. “That would be the idea.”

“You've got to earn it, Klaus.”

He raises eyebrows deceptively. “I thought I had.”

“How?”

He smirks, “How many times have I saved your life?”

She smiles back coldly. “How many times have you put it in danger?”

He chuckles, and looks out the window, to the sluggish street. “You may have me there, love," he admits, and when he looks back at her his gaze is as soft as melted butter. “I won't wait forever, Caroline," he says quietly, and levels that melted butter look at her with all the force he can.

“Yes, you will," Caroline says back, aching in her chest.

She's not sure she's right until he releases a sigh and admits, “Yes, I will." He reaches out, and takes her hand.

She smiles, and holds him back. His hand is large, and smooth, and somehow familiar.

“Why are you here? Why have you come all this way to see me?”

“I don't know. I just …” she trails off. “I wanted to.”

He nods. “Does that mean you love me too?”

"It probably can't hurt,” she whispers but that just means yes.

“Are you afraid?”

“Of you?” she asks.

He shrugs, “sure.”

“No, Klaus, and I know I should be, but I'm not. I'm really not.”

He likes that answer, she can see it in his eyes. “What else are you afraid of, if not me?”

“I was afraid of losing my humanity, or what I've got left of it. But then I… I met him, and he makes me feel more alive and human than anyone else."

He takes a deep breath and says, “do it.”

“Do what?” she asks, confused now. Has she forgotten the reason she came here? As if there ever was a reason, or was if it was just one she didn't want to admit. She came here to close a door, or check if it was. Or open it. If any of the shoes fit, and that's fucked up, isn't it? Caroline’s in love. She is, really. She loves him. But Klaus is….she said she loved Tyler, too. And that didn't change anything, so why should it now?

“Marry him,” he explains, and looks up at her.

“You just said you’d kill him,” she says incredulously.

“Not if you ask me too.” He takes his hand back, and Caroline misses it. “We have all the time in the world, love.”

“I'm not immortal,” is the thing she chooses to say, because she can’t think of anything else a good engaged woman would say.

He looks at her like she’s stupid, and she might be, “no one will ever hurt you.”

“Why?” She asks, and she’s not sure what she means. Why will no one hurt me? Why do you protect me? Why do you care about me like this? Why am I so interesting to you?

“Why do you think, Caroline?” he says, and maybe he’s responding to all those questions, but Caroline doesn't know that either.

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading this! i appreciate it! leave a comment/kudos/bookmark if you want.
> 
> xx


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